Nipate
Forum => Kenya Discussion => Topic started by: RVtitem on September 22, 2014, 11:53:24 PM
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Ken Ring waiting to Nairobi's airport, just where he stood as abandoned 14-year-old and desperately tried to get back to Sweden. This time, he is happier.
- First time in Kenya! You will notice a thing, as I discovered the first time I came here: Everyone here is black.
We said Ken, the mzungu . It means "white person" in Swahili, and is derived from the expression "wandering".
Ken is 35 years old and in the midst of the final production of her autobiography, "Life." It has already been pre-ordered by 7000 people, so many that Ken has been able to require first-class flights of the publisher ("I said I always fly first class, but the thing is that for the bonus points, I can ride free in economy next time").
Ken has just arrived from the coast, where he has his Kenyan base with a large house and a small tourist resort under construction. He is joined by his driver, 50-year-old Peter Wanjohi, her cousin and factotum Chepkorir Diana, 26, and her daughter Angel, 1.5 years. Soon connect DN's photographer, correspondent Erik Esbjörnsson, and we squish us in Ken's Toyota and drive west.
We reach after a five-hour trip Longisa, a village in Bomet in southwestern Kenya. The birthplace of Ken's mother Rebecca. Her father founded the village in turn. It is divided by a small river and Ken Rings grandfather had a wife on each side and a total of 20 children.
Today live here fifty people in simple houses. Some, a few, are low wooden house. Most are stone or mud houses with earth floor and roof of straw or corrugated iron. Everywhere roaming cows, goats and chickens in the gardens.
Ken's mother broke away from the village's traditions. She moved to Nairobi and met hallänningen Kenneth Ring, who left Sweden and South Africa through Mozambique and Tanzania ended up in Kenya. Liking occurred, two daughters were born. 1977 the family moved to Stockholm. Once there, the Sabbatsbergs hospital in January 1979, was born in Ken Kiprono Ring.
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n Oskarshamn, it was totally obvious. Those who came to Harry's was not shit many, and perhaps not very well off.
- Certainly not. It is my fans. Many forget that I have not had a radio hit since "Deep Water", never played on Voice, NRJ Radio or Rix. "The soul of a friend" was shot eight times on the radio and it went double platinum. I'm probably the artist in the Swedish hip hop that has the most faithful fans.
Ken sips from a bottle of Viceroy, a Kenyan brandy which he calls "the world's best cognac". He is restless and irritable, visibly stressed about the correspondence about the book. It takes away a bit of his sense of being at home in the village.
- But most muck it up this happy feeling of dropping a book. Before, I was more "abow, damn what nice to release a book that everyone should read". Now I'm worried that I release something that is not good. And now I know not to be in Sweden anymore when the book comes. I have a little looking forward to go to the book fair, doing interviews ... But you lose a little lust in any way.
What are your hopes for the book? You said your dream limit was 100,000 copies sold.
- If there is any book ... Okay, I hope it sells damn much. Books currently sold for SEK 189, it does not discs. I sell 100,000 books will be much money. Then I suddenly like buying a house.
- But I hope deep down that it can also make people think a bit. That you can get people in a difficult situation to turn around their lives, but also get it in a nice situation to change a bit. The dude who is always so cocky in the center, maybe he has his reasons. To look at something in the big. All people have thoughts and feelings. Every scandal has a reason.
He is pleased with himself having written so much of the book. Co-author Klas Ekman has helped him with a body and structure. But the language clearly wearing Ken's character.
- Those who have read the book have said that it feels like I, like I'm sitting with a pen and an old yellow paper, has lit a candle and just write. I've really got it down myself. I hope it gets through to people.
But the main moral of the book, according to Ken, is that he had help to take hold in their lives. There are other people who changed him. Fiancee, kids. His cousin Diana's first child, who died at birth and as Ken got buried.
- It is not me who has thought "oh God, what am I doing, it's time to tighten up." This idiocy in myself is still there through almost the entire book. Even in the last chapter, on the last page, you will get anyway empathy for an idiot, as well.
Ken was 13 when he met the love of her life, Camila. After many years off and on relationship, they now engaged and has twvå sons together. She is not happy that Ken has gone to Kenya and again left her alone with the children.
- She thinks I'm fucking ridiculous. Says "Honestly, Ken. You run around and talk about the concrete. What are you doing? It's time to make breakfast for the kids. "And it's hard for the kids that I'm famous and all scandals. , We go to parent-teacher meetings at school and daycare, it is clear that people have preconceptions about me.
Ken's two oldest children, Rebecca and Kelian, is 14 to 13 years. They have yet to read the book.
- I have decided to wait a bit. I'm wondering if I should read the book aloud to them. I have some anxiety over how I write about Rebecca's mom and Kelian. He will find out things that I pundade away his first year. It is perhaps not ready for that 13-year-old. I would have preferred that my kids were a little older, they are in a sensitive age teenagers.
Ken thinks for a second.
- I'm thinking of actually writing for a bit tonight. Something a little fancy about Rebecca's mother and two or three rows of the Kelian. Something about how perfect he is.
The next morning plingar it to Ken's mobile. He has been sitting up half the night and worked on the book. "This time nailade you really ending. No Bullshit ! "writes co-author. Ken shakes his head.
- Fuck what they buttering now.
Proofreader emailed. He has cared for sick children and realized that he missed key information from Ken.
- Then I had the right all along!
Ken smiles triumphantly.
You refer to yourself as black in Sweden. Here you call yourself white. What does it do to you?
- Here I get the sudden upper class. White, rich, with a driver. In Sweden it is the opposite. Spiritually, it will be like that you know you do not really have a home. In Sweden, I feel outside, and in Kenya, I feel outside.
- When I am in Sweden so ... Okay, now I am of course well known, but it is not so fun to run around in the concrete and being stopped by cops four times a month and is considered a half-pounders of all. It's not like I'm going around in Vällingbyvägen center and feel "ouff, at home! Damn good to be home! ", As well. It becomes a bit like you do not have a home anywhere really. Most of all you want to just buy an island and create their own country and breed type 40,000 children.
In anticipation of the island where Ken is trying to carve out a home in Longisa. He has built a small dairy factory along with a relative and had a flat land to build a house in one day. One way to compensate for his rootless life as a teenager, coming home to an end?
- Of course. Here in the village, I hope eventually I can be considered as a ... as a savior. That came home to my mother's place, built up some damn fat and made ??sure that the whole family got a lot better. When that happens, I will feel much more at home here too. This is beginning to build me a home, as well. BABYSTEPS . I do not know all, can not speak the language and all that. But when I'm 60-65 I will probably be sitting here with a cigar - or not a cigar maybe, but you know - and just look at how the milk runs out in trucks.
- It's me who is mzungu really, the disorientated walker. I come here, feel the love, the passion, it's absolutely perfect. But there are still people asking if they can have two cows.
http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/musik/ken-ring-pa-mammas-gata/ (In swedish)
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Didn't gitch it.